This textbook gives a clear and thorough presentation of the fundamental principles of mechanics and strength of materials. It provides both the theory and applications of mechanics of materials on an intermediate theoretical level, ranging from the mechanical properties of materials through the effects of axial load, torsion, bending, and transverse shear to stresses and strains in bars and continuum mechanics. The book is aimed at graduate and advanced undergraduate students in materials science courses in Mechanical, Civil, and Aerospace Engineering departments. Due to its solid theoretical presentation of basic concepts, the book can also be used as a reference tool by postgraduates and researchers in the fields of solid mechanics as well as practicing engineers.
Materials are of a discrete nature, since they are made of atoms and molecules, in the case of liquids and gases, or, in the case of solid materials, also of fibres, crystals, granules, associations of different materials, etc. The physical interactions between these constituent elements determine the behaviour of the materials. Of the different facets of a material’s behaviour, rheological behaviour is needed for the Mechanics of Materials. It may be defined as the way the material deforms under the action of forces.
The influence of those interactions on macroscopic material behaviour is studied by sciences like the Physics of Solid State, and has mostly been clarified, at least from a qualitative point of view. However, due to the extreme complexity of the phenomena that influence material behaviour, the quantitativedescription based on these elementary interactions is still a relatively young field of scientific activity. For this reason, the deductive quantification of the rheological behaviour of materials has only been successfully applied to somecomposite materials – associations of two or more materials – whose rheological behaviour may be deduced from the behaviour of the individual materials, in the cases where the precise layout of each material is known, such as plastics reinforced with glass or carbon fibres, or reinforced concrete.